


Between Salt and Sugar

by midnightflame



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Cooking, Domestic Fluff, Established Relationship, Fluff, Kissing, M/M, Shiro can't save his own life in the kitchen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-07
Updated: 2017-05-07
Packaged: 2018-10-28 22:25:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,131
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10840701
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/midnightflame/pseuds/midnightflame
Summary: Shiro is a disaster in the kitchen. Keith does his best to try and rectify this. Things don't go exactly as planned, but there's no denying that Shiro's intentions are in the best of places.





	Between Salt and Sugar

**Author's Note:**

  * For [heyitscmei](https://archiveofourown.org/users/heyitscmei/gifts).



> Birthday fic for @heyitscmei! She requested Sheith making cookies, and this is what I worked up. I hope you enjoy it, and happy belated birthday!

It has all the appearance of a perfectly conditioned firing line, each item set to condemn and send him on his way to an early death at the slightest command. Shiro stares down the ingredients, laid out in near order across the counter top, and having finally reconciled himself to the task at hand, lets his gaze linger on the man who had arranged this new brand of execution for his pride. 

“Keith, when you told me we had plans tonight, this isn’t exactly what I envisioned.”

A terse huff cuts into the air between them.

“And when you told me you could manage a Christmas cookie last month, I didn’t think we’d end up with black. . . _things_ that disintegrated the minute you touched one.”

Shiro offers up a sheepish smile, the one that usually gets him out of trouble in these situations but seems to be lacking in its usual charm if Keith’s folded-arm stance has told him anything over the course of the years. Like trying to knock down an iron door with a wooden stick, he knows there is no getting beyond that point without offering something more of himself. 

“Not all of them fell apart,” he counters. He’s not being defensive. Not at all. It’s simply a fair point to be made.

Keith snorts, failing to conceal his amusement for the first time since Shiro stepped into the kitchen and found himself a marked man. 

“You’re right. The others were so hard Lance started using them as makeshift bullets. I’m pretty sure Hunk still has a bruise from that one hit he took. . .”

Wincing at the memory, Shiro studies the line-up once more. It doesn’t appear _all_ that threatening. And what’s the worst sugar could really do to him? Certainly not put a hole through his heart. Even if that vague sense of foreboding still seems to linger about the milling lot of it all like a fine mountain mist, courting long-dead spirits and potential ends. He already can’t tell the difference between two of the white powdery materials sitting out pre-measured in their designated bowls. Though the eggs and milk are identifiable enough, and vanilla runs down the side of an amber bottle in blue scrawling letters, which means it’s not cheating if Keith meant for this to be some sort of practice test. 

He hopes to God this isn’t a test. 

Shiro can already taste the failure on his tongue. Sort of like when he over-salted the scrambled eggs last weekend. With a wrinkle of his nose, he turns back to Keith.

“So, how are we doing this?” 

_How will you have me die today, good sir?_ It’s all implied in the tone, ragged with defeat

Keith smiles at him, and it looks like hope renewed, spurring this quiet little flutter in the center of Shiro’s chest that makes him want to believe this isn’t the death sentence he had been resigned to just seconds ago. 

“I thought I could help you redeem yourself,” he says, with a flourish of his hand across the counter top. 

“Can’t be too difficult then.” Shiro flashes Keith a smile in return, this one deep and genuine. Because he believes in Keith when Keith believes in him. It’s as simple as that some days, just knowing that there is faith held for him in another’s hands, that he doesn’t always have to go digging for it for himself. 

Keith coughs up a laugh at that, his cheeks flushing with the sound. “We’ll see about that after we finish.” 

Reaching out, Shiro tugs on the edge of Keith’s half-apron, a vivid red splashing itself across his waist and thighs and contrasting with his otherwise black attire. He had chosen it for himself one day, an odd whim that took him as they were passing through a market street. Shiro had been jerked to a stilted halt as Keith suddenly found his fingers coursing over the material, his lips pulled to a worried pout like he was considering the implications of a laser strike over a potentially inhabited planet and not something as simple as what would best keep his body free of debris while he flitted about the kitchen. Shiro had plucked the apron free of its hanger a minute later, holding it up briefly against Keith’s chest, and with a grin to the stall's owner had said he would take it. 

Because it had been the right shade of red. The one that matched the blush over Keith’s cheeks. He may have found himself with a scowl tossed his way in the following seconds and his favorite dinner set before him later that night. 

Shiro still considers it one of his finer investments. 

“Nothing like a challenge to get a man going, right?” he answers, tossing a wink in Keith’s direction, full of a confidence he’s not quite sure he has for the task at hand but doesn’t mind feigning. Keith always sees through it regardless. 

Whether here in this small spit of an apartment they’ve come to call home or out in space fighting their way through to someone else’s freedom, Keith always sees him. 

“All right then, we’ll start with the dry ingredients. Mix the salt, baking powder, and flour together.” 

Keith doesn’t point to the bowls. Instead, he stands there with arms still folded and this smug curl of smile gloating over his lips. Shiro lifts an eyebrow at him. Keith finally motions towards the empty bowl waiting to be filled, the one Shiro had noted with a sinking despair. 

Right. He can do this. If he could pilot a mechanical semi-autonomous alien warship of a lion, he could figure out which white substance belonged in this bowl and which of them did not. Shiro pulls his shoulders back, instilling as much steel into his fortitude as he can, and he reaches for the nearest bowl. It's a bit larger than some of the others, with a deep middle of the ocean blue color and a decent helping of powdery white filling its belly. 

When he picks it up, and Keith doesn’t make a sound, he dumps it soundlessly into the awaiting bowl. Something inside of him chirrups in triumph. He picks up the next bowl, blue outer rim with a blaring yellow on the inside and a dollop of something else white sitting innocuously at its bottom. 

“Shiro, that’s powdered sugar.” 

“Are you sure it’s not the baking powder?” 

“Do you even know what baking powder is?” 

Silence greets that question as Shiro sets the bowl down with all due compliance and heaves out a sigh. 

“How is it you can calculate the probable meters per second you are crashing towards a planet with and the likely force of your collision but you can’t determine what ingredients are required and in what order even when you are given the recipe?” 

There is nothing of honest lamentation in Keith’s tone, but there is a handful of amusement and a dash of mild exasperation to it. Shiro exhales again, shoulders sagging. 

“My cooking repertoire consists of knowing how to boil water and pouring the indicated amount into a cup of instant noodles. I may have sometimes added in more than the line told me to. . .” 

“That is nothing to brag about.” But Keith is laughing, honest and open, wonderfully soft, as he takes Shiro’s hand and guides it towards another bowl, this one sunset red. “Baking powder.” 

Shiro leans over to steal a kiss from Keith, who to his surprise indulges him in the act. Neither chiding nor teasing, he gives into the kiss genuinely, letting Shiro’s lips linger against his as their fingers slip against one another over the bowl’s edge. 

“The flour came before it then?” 

“Yes,” Keith murmurs, his gaze losing itself in Shiro’s. 

“Then the salt.” 

Keith draws his hand over towards another bowl, a shallow one with a scalloped edge. With a smile tracing his lips, Shiro interlaces their fingers lightly, one after another then turns his hand over and starts the process all over again with a scrape of a nail to the inside of Keith's palm. Another kiss is taken, another breath shared. 

“Think you can remember that?” 

Shiro nods, pulling the bowls up and dumping their contents into the larger one without hesitation. Keith leaves him with one last peck to the corner of his mouth, then resumes his watcher’s duties at Shiro’s side, with his shoulder pressed against the oven and arms folding over his chest once more. A smile flashes brief as lightning over Shiro’s lips. Keith barely suppresses his laughter. 

“I managed that okay, huh?” His words come out low, laced with quiet awe, part of him still snared by the memory of warmth against his fingers, over his mouth, the way Keith’s question had come out as gentle as a Sunday morning’s drizzle. He’s not looking for any real affirmation, but Keith smiles at him nonetheless. 

It never fails to pull the rug out from under his better senses. 

With a measured inhale, Shiro picks up the spatula and slowly starts churning the ingredients together. 

“And after this?” he asks. 

Keith unlocks his arms, the right lifting so a hand can scratch at his chin, the left falling against his side. “Then we’ll combine the butter and sugar. You’ll want the electric mixer for that.” 

Shiro follows Keith’s gaze and finds the black and white appliance lying on its side between the stovetop burners. Two silver whisk-like things stick out from its bottom like misplaced limbs, seemingly threatening the air around them. It kind of reminds Shiro of a T-Rex in reverse, with long, ungainly arms and a too thin tail trailing out towards the electrical outlet. With one flick of a button, he’ll set it to roaring with indignant fury at the monstrosity of its creation. 

“What’s so funny?” 

“It looks hideous.” 

Laughter bursts out of Keith like thunder. He claps a hand over his mouth at the shock of it, stifling the giggles that still insist on bubbling up his throat. Shiro grins over at him, shrugging his shoulders. 

“Just calling it like I see it.” 

“Would you put the butter and sugar in the other bowl already,” Keith mutters, chest still hiccupping with his attempts to swallow each laugh. 

It’s the cutest damn thing Shiro has seen all day. 

He follows the instructions dutifully though. The last white substances left before him are the powdered sugar, which Keith vigorously shook his head _no_ at as Shiro’s hand automatically drifted for it, and apparently ‘other’ sugar. Shiro could see it was coarser, looking no different from the salt before and suddenly causing a whole hell of a lot of things to start falling into place inside of his head. 

Salt. 

Sugar. 

He had royally fucked that up last time. 

Grabbing the bowl of not-powdered sugar, Shiro dumps it into the second empty bowl, a rather cheerful orange in shade (he vaguely remembers wondering why Keith had drifted about the store collecting such an odd mix of them, but it had seemed to make him happy and that in turn had been more than enough for Shiro), that Keith had set out for him beforehand as well. In its wake, Shiro unloads the butter, which hits with a dull plop and tumbles down the side of the sugar mountain. 

“Ok,” Keith breathes out. A blink, and he’s standing there, finding the last of his laughter threatening mutiny when Shiro picks up the mixer and holds it like a man about to go into battle. Arm up, mixer raised, expression soldier stolid. “Goddamit, Shiro. . .” 

The words put a crack across Shiro’s face, drawing his eyebrows up and the whisper of a smile to his lips. 

“Just. . .set the beaters down into the bowl already.” 

Shiro gives the requisite salute before proceeding as told. Beaters sink into the sugar, mashing the edge of the butter stick. Keith taps the number four over the scale running along the mixer’s back, and Shiro slowly cranks up the appliance as indicated. Everything proceeds as expected, with the soft whir of churning ingredients filling the air around them. Shiro tips his head towards Keith, letting the smile grow into something more tangible. 

_Not bad, right?_

Keith shakes his head, but there’s no disguising the smile that springs up in answer. He laughs softly, shakes his head again, then sets a kiss to Shiro’s shoulder. “Now, add the egg and milk and mix it all together.” 

It becomes an easy rhythm at this point, and Shiro thinks that nothing could really be simpler. The egg goes next, yolk splattering against the sugary concoction below, and is doused in the ensuing fall of milk. Shiro kicks the mixer back into gear with a flick of his thumb and watches as the ingredients meld together into a pale yellow. Keith settles in beside him, a hand coming to perch upon his shoulder where he rests his chin, the fingers of his other hand hooking around one of Shiro’s belt loops. 

“The last thing now is the flour mixture,” Keith murmurs into his ear. “Keep the beaters going, then slowly add it in.” 

A shiver cuts down Shiro’s spine. As he reaches for the bowl containing the dry ingredients, he tips his head in towards Keith. 

“You have to be careful with this part. . .” comes as a warm whisper, ends with the faint curl of a smirk. “Or you’ll make a mess.” 

“Can’t be that hard,” Shiro answers. His gaze darts briefly to his hands, with his right steadily working the mixer through the wet ingredients while the left moves the other bowl into position just above it. 

“I’m just saying be careful,” Keith echoes. 

“I think I’ve got –“ When Shiro catches sight of Keith’s smile, that soft bit of one that tells him for all his shortcomings he is still impossibly loved, something in him stutters over itself, causing nerves to misfire and muscles to spasm, and he really, really wants to kiss the man, but then the whirring turns to a roar with the slip of his thumb and _poof!_. “ – this.” 

Shiro coughs in the flurry of flour drifting around them like volcanic ash. It very well may be the end of his days. Over his shoulder, Keith is squinting through the fog of it all, his features coated in a fine white dust. The mixer is shut off and left idle in the bowl while laughter threatens to spill from him. 

If this is the end, he may as well go down laughing at his own folly. 

Keith blows air out through his lips, causing his bangs to rustle and flushing the flour dusting Shiro’s shoulder out into the space around them. He cracks one eye open and sets it, piercing, on Shiro’s face. 

The whole picture of it reminds Shiro of a cat unceremoniously dumped into a bathtub, and rather than scrambling out of the horror it has been immersed in, sits there, waist deep and glaring at the affront of it all. 

“Sorry about that, Firefly,” Shiro laughs, wiping some of the flour from Keith’s nose. 

Keith snaps at Shiro’s finger, teeth clanging sharply as they close around nothing. Another swipe of finger along cheek, a slide of his hand beneath Keith’s chin and a tip up of his head, for a kiss to be offered in pure appeasement. Keith relents after a moment, and Shiro tastes the hints of butter and sugar, the dry graininess of the flour within it. 

“Why do you call me that?” 

“Firefly?” 

Keith nods his head, expression softening just enough to tell Shiro he might yet keep his life. “You only started it in the last year or so. . .” 

“I thought the notion of fire and fly was pretty obvious,” Shiro chuckles, earning himself a poke in the ribs from Keith. He exhales heavily, studying Keith’s face for one of those endless seconds, the ones that stretch on and on, grasping for eternity only to be reminded that they exist as one distinct click of time. 

He offers a small smile, then begins, “I remembered something from when I was younger.” He twists about until he's standing face-to-face with Keith, bringing one arm around the man’s waist while he wipes away at another streak of white across his cheek. Keith wrinkles his nose, catches Shiro’s thumb on the pass over with his lips and pulls a smile to Shiro’s mouth. He presses on with his memory, lips still curved and gaze still latched onto Keith’s. “There used to be this field, with grass up to your waist and the air warm enough to sleep in. Every summer it would light up with hundreds of fireflies. . .and it was like the stars had dropped down to earth for the night.” 

Thumb released with the small pop of a kiss, Shiro brings his hand down to join the other. A gentle tug, the pulse of a smile brings Keith closer to him. 

“But unlike the stars, if I had enough patience, I could hold one of them within my hands. And they would flicker there, always flickering. I knew that it was all for them to call to one another there in the dark.” 

He drops his head forward, letting his forehead rest against Keith’s as his gaze continues to drift through the blue-grey of the eyes staring back at him. 

“You call to me in the darkness. I can hold you within my hands, and every moment of that reminds me of how warm life can be. I know we aren’t done being called by the universe, but even if just for a moment. . .” 

“Takashi?” 

Shiro blinks at the interruption. “Yes?” 

Keith waves his left hand in the air before Shiro. “I said yes, and that means forever. Got it?” 

A soft huff of laughter answers that. Shiro dips his head and steals yet another kiss like it was owed to him for such audacity, the theft coming with a muffled sound and a sharp tug on the hair at the crown of his head. When they part, Keith is grinning up at him though, and it tells him that there are some things, plenty of things that can be forgiven. 

“But since you fucked up the last batch of cookies and haven’t even made your way to finishing this next one, I might have to consider some sanctions. So, let’s hope you get the next one right.” 

Shiro wraps himself tighter around Keith, nuzzling his head into the crook of his neck. “I already got it right.” 

“We haven’t even finished making the -” 

“I married you,” Shiro says with a smile coloring his words warm and loved. “I already got it right, Keith.” 


End file.
